


Celtic Cross

by elyssblair



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2200347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elyssblair/pseuds/elyssblair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After SHIELD falls, Clint has to find a new direction.  The battered deck of Tarot cards seemed like as good an idea as any</p>
            </blockquote>





	Celtic Cross

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Sian1359's beautiful art, created for Avengers Reverse Big Bang.

Clint was on the street doing a little casual surveillance when he got the  call. Unknown number, no words, just a series of meaningless beeps anyone else would assume came from an accidental pocket dial.

They meant something to Clint, though. His pace stayed the same, his posture and gait not hitching in the least. The phone dropped surreptitiously into the first trash can he passed, however. Then Clint bailed on his mark, taking a tortuous, circuitous path through crowded shopping districts, down empty alleyways, over rooftops and into long abandoned tunnels.

Once certain he'd shaken any tail he might have, he made a bee line for an apartment no one would ever be able to connect to Clint Barton. Or any of his other identities, past or present. The small studio was empty except for a single duffel bag stuffed under the sink and a burner phone charging on the counter. When he picked up the phone, it blinked merrily at him to announce one new voicemail.

Natasha's spoke quietly, her words clipped and her voice tight. "SHIELD is gone. Trust no one. Disappear."

Then abrupt silence.

A knot of sorrow settled in Clint's chest, but he didn't give himself time to wallow in it. He didn't doubt Natasha's warning for a second or the urgency of it.  He'd left everything behind before and he knew there'd be plenty of time to mourn, later.

He grabbed his duffel and headed up to the roof. Before jumping to the next building, he wiped the phone down, dropped it over the side and listened to it shatter on the pavement six stories below.

It had served its purpose. Only two people ever knew about that phone. Nat wouldn't be contacting him that way again. The other one had been dead for two years. Slicing pain ran through him, the same fierce guilt and loss he endured whenever he thought of Coulson, but he squashed it.

No time to dwell on past mistakes or regrets now.

#

A few days of random travel later, Clint sat on a questionably clean bed in a rundown motel room trying to make sense of the news. Screaming talking heads, hysterical politicians and wacky conspiracy theorists took turns on the twenty-four hour news cycle spouting crazy accusations and dire predictions. Despite the constant stream of information and non-stop reporting, very little actual facts could be gleaned from the sheer amount of insanity.

He only knew a few things for sure. Fury was dead. SHIELD was gone. Hill worked for Stark, now.(And wouldn't he have loved to be a fly on the wall for that job interview.) Most importantly, Natasha had dropped off the grid after testifying in front of congress.

Oh, and Clint was apparently a fugitive. Again.

For the first time in a long, long time, he had no idea what to do or where to go.

He'd been lost after Loki and New York and…

Clint swallowed the hitch in his throat and forced his breath into a semblance of normal. Forced himself to finish the thought.

He'd been lost after Coulson's death.

Then, though, Natasha had been there to push him, support him and prop him up when he needed it. Fury had been there to give him mission after mission to focus on until enough time passed to ease the sharpness of the memories, guilt and loss.

Not that there'd ever be enough time in the world to blunt the edges of what losing Coulson had done to him. Especially since the man died without Clint finding the courage to express what Phil meant to him. Died because Clint had been too weak to break Loki's spell.

Now…

Now he had nothing. No one. The few people he dared let himself count on were dead or scattered to the four winds.

Clint flopped back on the bed, head landing on the duffel that had been his  last resort for years.  A last resort, he'd begun to believe he'd never have to use again.

A lump of something poked at his ear and he shifted only to have it jab his temple. With a sigh, Clint sat up and dug around until he pulled out the battered, rectangle box made of plain, unadorned wood.

A soft smile ghosted across his lips. Remnants of another life left behind. Madame Rosa.  Fortune teller extraordinaire.

He opened the box and let his thumb drift over the tattered deck of tarot cards. After a year of teaching him how to read the cards, and the marks who eagerly paid for the privilege of being conned, she'd given him her third best deck.

"The cards have their own stories. I can teach you the symbols, but the truth and the meaning lies in you. Trust your instincts. The cards talk to each of us in their own ways."

She told him that late at night, when she'd read for him or for herself. Along with the lessons came admonishments.

"Never, ever tell the customer what the cards really say. Tell them what they want to hear. Tell them they will come into money or find true love or get the promotion. Or tell them their fears are justified. Not to trust their lover or their boss. Do not tell them they must endure hardship or illness. Do not tell them they must change or grow. No one wants to hear they aren't perfect exactly as they are. If you want to make money and keep them coming back, give them the fantasy they crave."

Ultimately, the cold reading skills she'd taught him had become more invaluable to him than anything else he'd learned in the circus, aside from archery. He still occasionally pulled out the cards and read for himself, though. Listened to his instincts and trusted the cards to steer him on the road he should travel. It rarely led him to the easiest path, but always to what he truly needed.

The last time he taken the cards out of the box, they'd led him to SHIELD. Which gave him Coulson and Natasha.

Both were out of his reach now, though. Time to find the next twist in the path he followed.

Clint smoothed out the bedspread in front of him and pulled the cards out of the box.

#

 Settling crossed-legged on the bed, Clint closed his eyes and took three deep, settling breaths. He relaxed his mind, letting his thoughts drift a little. Sometimes it was better to let the cards answer him unprompted than to try to figure out the right question to ask.

Absently, he shuffled and cut the cards in his hands until long honed instincts told him it was time. With a tremor of  trepidation, Clint opened his eyes and turned over the first card.

The Three of Swords dropped onto the bed in front of him.

_Sorrow. Pain. Grief._

Of course the card representing him would force Clint to confront the heartache he'd carried, and ignored, for two years. The sharp loss of Coulson had lodged itself in his heart like one of the blades on the card and refused to be moved.

Now, two more shafts of pain sliced into him. SHIELD was gone and  he had no idea when he'd see Natasha again. The foundation he'd allowed himself to settle on had been ripped out from under him and there was no soft place to land.

Refusing to dwell on it, Clint rolled his shoulders and flipped the next card. The reversed image of the High Priestess stared balefully up at him.

 _Inaccurate and incomplete information_.

A snort escaped him and he settled the card across the first. No kidding. Nothing was ever what it seemed with SHIELD. HYDRA added a whole other fucked up level of duplicity to it.

Frustrated, he laid down the next three cards. The Tower, followed by the Hermit, and the Emperor, both reversed.

Still nothing surprising or unexpected. Sudden change shook his foundations. Check.

Forced out of the self-imposed isolation he'd been wallowing in recently. Check.

Current conditions no longer letting him cling rigidly to the rut he'd dug himself. Check.

The fall of SHIELD shoved him out of his cozy pocket of avoidance. There was no going back for him, now.

The card that completed the circle, however, did surprise Clint.

Nine of Batons

_Resilience. Inner strength. Ability to overcome._

The potential to move forward was something he hadn't really believed he possessed. Honestly, it wasn't even something he was sure he wanted.

The Three of Pentacles, however, tempered it slightly with a warning that hard work and effort would be required.

Like anything had ever been easy in Clint's life. He'd fought and clawed for everything he'd ever gotten. Here he was again, alone with nothing to show but his bow, a single duffel bag and a tattered deck of cards.

He turned the next card and sucked in his breath. Carefully, he set it in line above the previous two.

He knew Death rarely meant a literal, physical death but the imagery and implication was always a momentary shock.

The traditional meaning was one of change, a drastic transition, an ending of one phase and beginning of another. With no hope of going back.

The obvious reading was the death of his old life. The people and places he started to trust and depend on were gone and he was alone again.

Except, he couldn't quite forget a late night conversation with a tipsy Madame Rosa.

"Death is just another word for life. In some dark places, the Death card is whispered to presage resurrection. Rebirth."

She'd passed out shortly after. Clint asked her the next day if she meant someone might come back from the dead, she'd hushed him immediately. Gnarled fingers dug into his arm and she'd looked around to make sure no one had heard. "No. We do not speak of this. Is dark. A thing not done. Forget."

He couldn't help wishing it were possible. But it was just part of the drama she liked to wrap around her like a cloak. The same way she died her blond hair black and hid her mid-western accent under some shifting, vague broken English. Clint's past was well and truly gone and there was no resurrecting it. 

His hand slipped back to the deck.  That the Chariot was the next card didn't surprise him at all. He'd been expecting it to pop up somewhere.

A promise of travels and journeys to come. At least it was upright. It gave him hope of success in his future.

Clint hesitated before flipping over the final card. With a snarl of frustration at his own fear, he slid it off the top of the deck face down and dropped the rest of the cards on the bed next to him.

Holding his breath he turned it over.

He let the air slowly out of his lungs and set the card in place, finding the revelation anti-climatic.

A need to find balance. An admonition to search out his purpose. To seek out others on the same path and find harmony.

Except, of course, that Natasha told him not to trust anyone. Not that trust had ever been one of his strong suits to begin with.

Frustrated, he scrubbed his hands over his face, then reached out to pick up the scattered cards. His hand stopped half-way, hovering over the jumble on the bed next to him.  Three cards had landed face up when he'd dropped the deck.

The Magician. A reminder he was responsible for creating his own reality, everyday. Something he'd been neglecting, letting Natasha and Fury move him around like a game piece.

Now, though, the moves were his.

The Ace of Pentacles promised he was heading in the right direction, if he heeded the cards.

The Devil, however, upside down and stark against the backs of the other cards demanded his attention. Bidding him to let go of the past. Let go of his fear and the darkness he'd allowed to chain him since New York. To stop hiding and face his demons in order to move beyond them.

First he'd hidden from his feelings for Coulson, locking them away so deep he rarely even acknowledge them.

Then he'd hidden from the agony of loosing something he'd never actually had by refusing to talk about Phil at all. Not touching the bittersweet memories of how he'd lived or the guilt fueled nightmares of how he'd died.

The Devil mocked him with the knowledge that the only way to let go of the past was to go through it. To face what he'd felt, what he'd done, what he had never said. The only way to let go of the past was to tell Phil how he felt.

Then tell Phil goodbye.

# 

Clint hadn't considered visiting the cemetery where Phil was buried much of a risk. Too many live SHIELD and HYDRA agents remained on the loose  for anyone to concern themselves with a man who'd been dead for two years. He'd been careful, anyway, out of habit and to take a little extra time to steel himself for seeing Phil's grave.

He'd been too riddled with guilt, twisted up with grief and regret and self-recriminations, right after New York. He couldn't face the reality of Phil's funeral. Instead, he drank himself into oblivion while the man he… while Phil was laid to rest.

After, he'd considered visiting. He couldn't bring himself to, though. Not when all he'd only find a heavy stone. No pristine suit, no sarcastic smile, no Coulson. He could try to explain his absence, his choices… but talking to grass about things he hadn't been able to say to the living, breathing man seemed the height of disrespect. So he'd pushed the thoughts away. Pushed the memories away. Did his job and tried not to think too hard about what his life was missing.

Now, staring down at the violated grave, anger and horror burned him up from the inside out. He should have come sooner. Should have done something to protect Phil's final resting spot. Should at least have a clean, unsullied memory of it.

Why would anyone do this?  The digging was fresh, recent. The police tape still intact. Some of the dirt and morning dew settled into the casket's pristine lining, sullying even that. Clint crouched down on the edge of the hole to get a closer look. He'd never seen a disinterment, but the satin looked a little too pristine. Not even a dent where the head should have rested.

"Hey, you! Get away from there. Didn't you see the tape? It's dangerous."

A stooped old man jogged toward him from across the rows of headstones, waving a rake. From the grass and dirt stains, Clint guessed he was the ground's keeper. He stood up and decided going on the offensive might be his best bet of getting the information he needed.

"What's going on? What happened to Phil? Why hasn't he been reburied?"

The keeper stopped beside Clint to stare down and grimace. "Not sure exactly what happened. The police are suppose to be investigating, but, well, they found a meth lab two blocks over and someone tried to rob the bank on Main yesterday. Not a priority, I suppose. Didn't seem right to rebury the casket until we find its occupant. Hopefully the cops will catch up with her soon. Maybe she knows what happened."

Clint swallowed down the fiery burn of bile and demanded "Her? Who, her?"

The man shrugged. "Some woman climbed out of the grave, calm as you please in front of another visitor and walked away. She didn't have a body with her, though. No one's sure what's going on."

Clint frowned, beginning to wonder if there'd ever been a body here at all. What kind of game had Fury been playing? What was the point of a decoy grave? Where the hell was Coulson really buried?

All of that could wait, though. He needed more information.  "What did she look like?"

He braced himself to hear the man describe Natasha. One final betrayal might push him over the edge. But the tight band of apprehension loosened when the old man started speaking.

"Dark hair, fair skin. Asian, maybe. Mr. McDonald only caught a glimpse of her." The keeper frowned, suspicion creeping back into his expression. "Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here?"

Who was he, to Phil? That was a loaded question he didn't have the time, or the emotional stability, to answer.

"A friend. I just wanted to pay my respects. Now, I'm going to find out what happened and make someone pay."

He turned on his heel and stalked back to his car, formulating a plan.

#

No matter how well train, the modern era made it impossible for an operative to stay completely off the radar. It took Clint four days, all of his charm, knowledge of law enforcement and a metric ton of bullshit to access to enough CCTV systems to catch a break.

Even with his sharp eyes and unwavering determination, she'd been good enough to only appear for a few seconds and smart enough to hide in plain sight by looking exactly like every other tourist stopping at the highway rest stop for gas. The only reason Clint noticed her at all, was because he'd spent so much time studying her. Trying to figure out what her relationship with Coulson was. Were they just friends? Or was there more to their weekly lunch date?

Melinda May had always been an enigma to him. And she still had secrets about Phil that Clint was determined to discover.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to find any sign of her beyond the one brief stop. After a week, he gave up the trail for dead and started a library tour, using the free internet access to search through the files Natasha had dumped onto the web.

After years riding a desk, nine months earlier May had suddenly accepted an assignment to pilot a research plane. A plane Clint could find no other record of. He also couldn't find any record of anyone else assigned to the plane or any mention of what it was supposed to be researching.

After days of fruitless searching and cross-referencing, Clint reluctantly gave up and started skimming through everything available, trying to find something that would lead him in the right direction.

It wasn't what he found the sparked his interest, though. It was what he didn't find.

All of SHIELD's various bases were listed. With two glaring exceptions.

A year after New York, Fury had had Clint and Natasha test the security protocols of two newly built, highly secret SHIELD facilities. At the time, Clint assumed it was yet more busy-work created to keep him from spiraling into the pit of depression he always stood on the edge of. But there wasn't a single mention of either base in any of the official SHIELD records.

There  _was_  a rumor Colonel Talbot and his team, led by Hill, had been nosing around the Canadian wilderness. No gossip or whisper even hinted at the existence of the second base, however.

He might not find May there, but Clint would bet his bow he'd at least find something to lead him in the right direction. And the cards had promised him a successful quest if he faced his past and followed the path it led him on.

It wasn't like he or Natasha had given Fury enough information to plug  _all_  the holes.  They both knew there might come a time when they needed the edge on SHIELD and Fury.

# 

Slipping into the Fury's secret base wasn't quite as easy as Clint hoped without all of the usual SHIELD goodies to help. He'd had to some liberate climbing gear from a sporting goods store. Borrow a few odds and ends from the Home Depot and Radio Shack.  Even his balaclava was from freaking Wal-Mart.

Still, he made it past the perimeter and inside the building itself before May came out of nowhere and slammed him headfirst into a wall. He shifted his weight and ducked under the next punch, pivoting away from the cement blocks to give himself room to maneuver.

Used to sparring with Natasha, Clint managed to hold his own in the fight until a well-placed elbow strike dropped him to one knee.

When he coughed and sputtered and finally dragged air back into his lungs, he looked up to find the muzzle of a gun pointed between his eyes. Clint rolled his shoulders, and forced his posture to relax trying to telegraph  _harmless_  as hard as he could.

The man holding the gun looked vaguely familiar and Clint racked his brain trying to remember why while he took in the situation.

May stepped back, hands on her hips but still coiled for action. Behind the two agents, stood a woman brandishing a baseball bat and one clutching a scalpel. Not exactly the hive of villainy Clint expected to find. Nor did it seem like the kind of SHIELD secret ops contingency plan he'd have expected Fury to leave behind.

But, one problem at a time. Clint tilted his head back to look the glowering gunman in the face as the name dropped into place.

"Tripp, buddy. Long time, no see."

Bat-girl pressed forward, frowning. "Tripp, you know him?"

The frown deepened and Tripp's eyes narrowed to stare harder at Clint. "The voice is familiar…"

Melinda stepped forward and yanked Clint's mask off.

"Barton."

Her voice was flat and unimpressed as always, but her eyes widened a millimeter. More surprise than she showed the time the clown with a bomb appeared in the middle of the Halifax op. Clint decided to take it as a win. Then she scowled, an expression he was more familiar with from her.

"What are you doing here?"

His amusement vanished in a flash, mission taking center stage in his heart. The image of Phil's desecrated grave burned into his mind like a brand.

"I came to find out what the hell you did with Coulson's corpse."

A couple of sharp intakes of breath echoed in the hall, but the girl with the scalpel tilted her head and looked between him and May with confusion.

"But Coulson's not—"

Bat-girl yanked her arm and tugged her back, cutting off the lilting accent with a determined shake of her head.

May stepped closer, pulling his attention away from the girl before Clint could ask her what Coulson wasn't.

"You've been to Phil's grave." She didn't bother to phrase it as a question, just crossed her arms and stared down at him.

"Yeah," he snarled back, frustration and anger bubbling to the surface after he'd suppressed it for weeks. "Now I want to know what the hell is going on."

"Coulson's grave? What happened to Coulson's grave?" Bat-girl asked.

Clint continued to stare at May, refusing to give her the satisfaction of looking away when he answered. "Ghoul girl here dug it up."

"May?"

May rolled her eyes, breaking eye-contact first and giving Clint an inappropriate sense of victory. "I had my reasons, Skye."

"Does…" Sky started, then paused, looking at Clint before tilting her head toward somewhere deeper in the base. "Does  _he_  know?"

May sighed in exasperation and turned to face the two girls. "Yes,  _he_  knows."

With her attention diverted, Clint tightened his muscles, readying to take out Tripp at the knees. The sound of back-up  _finally_  running toward their location made him hesitate a fraction too long.

"Damn it!" May twisted around, heading for the approaching footsteps. "Wait, no…"

But it was too late. Three men barreled around the corner. Koenig, who'd been in charge of the place the last time Clint had been there. Some curly haired guy. And—

What the fuck was going on?

# 

Clint couldn't take his eyes off of Phil and he saw the exact moment when Phil's attention zeroed in on him. He stopped abruptly, looking shocked and confused.

"Barton?"

Clint wanted to laugh at the surprise in his voice, but he was too close to the edge of hysteria. His body trembled, threatening a complete melt down if he couldn't get it together. So he swallowed hard and inhaled sharply through his nose.

"Ph—"

No. Not Phil. They were never close enough for first names before… Before. Colleagues. Just because Clint had spent so long wallowing in his deeper feelings, then hiding from them, it didn't mean  _Coulson_ would understand the sudden intimacy.

"Coulson. What the hell?"

His voice still broke on the question. So much for professionalism and emotional distance.

Coulson straightened, shrugged and holstered his gone. "Uh, yeah. Reports of my death… well, you know."

He tried to smile, but his lips took on a guilty twist. Then he walked through the crowd around Clint.

"Okay, everybody back to work." He held out a free hand to Clint, who was still kneeling on the cold floor. "I'll take Barton to my office to debrief."

"Uh, Director Coulson," Koenig sidled over. "He doesn't have security clearance for the office level."

Coulson lifted an eyebrow and gave his serious frown. The one Barton knew first-hand meant he was trying not to laugh in someone's face.

"I think I can handle this, Billy. It'll be fine."

"Uh, right. Of course. Director's privilege."

He backed away slowly, never taking his eyes off of Clint. Clint half expected him to make the I'm-Watching-You gesture behind Coulson's back. Instead, he just made sure he was the last to disappear around the corner with one final glare.

When they were finally alone, Coulson looked down at the empty hand still stretched toward Clint.

"Barton. Clint?"

Still half-afraid Phil would disappear in a puff of smoke, Clint gingerly set his fingers in the man's hand. But Coulson grasped tight, pulling him to his feet and held on for a few seconds longer while Clint fought to find his equilibrium. They stood so close Coulson's body heat pressed into Clint, warming the iciness he'd been living with for two years. The familiar scent of Coulson's cologne wrapped around him, grounding him. Making it more real than simply seeing Phil had.

With the reality, anger started to bubble up inside of him. He had mourned for Phil. Lived with the grief and the guilt and the bitter pain. For two years, he'd locked himself away, feeling only half-alive and sometimes wishing he didn't even have that much vitality.

Before he got tangled up in too many emotions, before he said too much and gave anything away, he reached for the first safe topic he could think of.

"So,  _Director_  Coulson?"

Coulson dropped his eyes and shook his head with a self-deprecating embarrassment. "It's a long story."

"As long as the one where you're not dead and you never bothered to tell me—anyone?"

The harsh words slipped out, scratching across his tongue and refusing to be pulled back by his better sense. So much for not jumping straight into it.

Coulson sighed and let go of Clint's hand.

"I think we both need a drink for this conversation. Let's go to my office."

#

As soon as the door was closed, and locked, behind them, Coulson crossed the room. Clint followed and watched while he slid open a wall panel to reveal a well-stocked bar.

Coulson poured some amber colored liquor into two cut crystal rocks glasses before pressing one of them into Clint's hand. Coulson exhaled and took a fortifying sip, eyes closing and throat working slowly as he savored it.

Clint forced his gaze away from the tempting length of Coulson's neck and lifted his own drink to his mouth. He barely tasted whatever it was, tossing back the whole thing and enjoying the burn. He let the heat spread through him and ground him before handing back the empty glass in a silent demand for more.

Coulson didn't comment, just lifted a single, judging eyebrow and refilled it. Then he moved over to the leather couch and plopped down, loosening his tie as he went.

Clint sat down next to him, but made sure to leave a couple of feet of space between them. The urge to reach for Coulson, to check for the warmth, to touch and be touched again was too strong. He couldn't let himself give in to it.

When they both settled, Coulson cracked his neck and met Clint's eyes.

"So, Loki killed me," Coulson said matter-of-factly and Clint choked on the sudden upswell of guilt that swamped him. Coulson winced when the pained sound escaped Clint but continued speaking. "But Fury decided he wasn't done with me yet and brought me back."

Clint listened as Coulson explained about 'Tahiti' and Fury's deception. Alien blood, Fury's not-death and ther Director's passing of the torch. He swallowed back the questions, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of bullshit Coulson had endured.

He understood, really he did, that Coulson had been through hell. But he couldn't help asking, anyway. "Why didn't you find a way to tell  _me_? All this time, didn't you trust me?"

"No, it wasn't that. Never that." Coulson leaned forward, hand pressing into Clint's where it rested between them on the back of the couch. "At first, well, recovery took a long time. Then I let Fury convince me that I'd been dead so long already, it was better all the way around if I stayed that way for a while. That there were things I could do, now with less scrutiny. After, well, after everything hit the fan, things got crazy and we were trying to put out a lot of fires without getting burned ourselves. You went off the grid and I didn't know what kind of trouble I'd lead to your door by looking too hard for you."

Clint winced. He hadn't given a thought to leading bad guys to Phil. In his defense, he'd believed Phil was dead and he hadn't been too concerned about causing trouble for the woman who'd defiled his grave.

As always, Coulson read his mind.

"I'm glad you found us. I doubt you've let your standards slip so much that anyone followed you here, but if they did, we'll deal with it." He patted Clint's hand, but left his fingers, warm and real, on top of Clint's. "So, how did you find us?"

Clint dove into the story, starting with Natasha's first warning call. He blushed a little when he admitted to taking advice from a bunch of cards and glossed over exactly what the cards had said to send him to Coulson's grave.

"May's going to be pissed," Coulson laughed and Clint eased at the sound. "So tarot, huh? That was your best idea?"

The warmth of the whiskey, the hot buzz of it under his skin and the simple comfort of being with Coulson again after two years made his tongue loose and his brain sluggish.

"It worked," he answered with a shrug and soft smile. "Brought me back to you, didn't it?"

There was a moment of silence, just long enough for Clint to realize what he'd let slip before Coulson asked softly, "Is that what you wanted? To be back with me?"

Coulson had gone still next to him, eyes holding Clint's with demanding intensity,  his words low and serious when he asked the question.

Clint tore his eyes away, desperately looking anywhere but at Coulson. Lies and half-truths jump to the front of his tongue out of habit. But he pushed them back.

He'd spent the past two years filled with burning, bitter regret. Hating himself for not saying the words when he had a chance. He couldn't make the same mistake again. Even if it meant regretting this moment for the rest of his life.

Forcing himself to meet Coulson's curious, direct gaze.  "Yes. I've missed you every day since… Wished every day I could have done a dozen things differently. Had said something at all."

The fingers still pressed to the back of his hand, began to stroke softly over his skin and he shuddered. Unable to help himself, he shifted closer to Coulson.

"Me, too," Coulson whispered, moving as well, until they were breathing in each other's air and Phil's words brushed against Clint's lips. "I wished I had said something, done something to show you… But I didn't think you'd ever feel what I… And then it was too late and you were out of reach and I…"

Clint had never been a fan of words, when actions could say so much more. He cut off Coulson's ramble by pressing their lips together. Letting his tongue dart out to taste the lingering whiskey, he took his time savoring the moment and sinking into the sensations he'd thought he'd only ever get to dream about.

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art: Clint's Reading](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207871) by [sian1359](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359)




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